


Homestack

by aptEntelekhine



Category: Homestuck, Metastuck - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:25:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6796606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aptEntelekhine/pseuds/aptEntelekhine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>>a bunch of kids played a game that causes the end of the world. now some green fuck jerks off and this results in a bunch of other kids dying.</p><p>I'd rather watch a crew of gay time-traveling leprechauns teach a child with a learning disability how to already be where he is. Wouldn't you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. WHAT THE FUCK. IS THIS.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HSGsession. TA TC CD CA AT SA and fine PoS I guess. TT here; thanks for playing!](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=HSGsession.+TA+TC+CD+CA+AT+SA+and+fine+PoS+I+guess.+TT+here%3B+thanks+for+playing%21).



SCENE: A broad STAGE, with bright green curtains.

The rest of the room, (if a room it is), is darkened; a single SPOTLIGHT shines down into its center, illuminating a HATEFUL SULLEN TEEN lying with his upper limbs crossed.

> Hateful Sullen Teen: Remove arms from chest.

>implying your shitty joke was clever in any way

fuck off. I’m busy wallowing in my own misery.

> Hateful Sullen Teen: Tell a story.

you want a story? once upon a time, a bunch of shit went completely off the walls in a completely predictable manner that even a bunch of idiots as stupid as we were would have foreseen if we’d just had time to think and hadn’t been caught up in all our pointless personal drama. The End.

what, is that not good enough? I’m sorry.

I couldn’t hear you over the vast and deafening sound of me not giving a shit.

oh wait I do give a shit. I give precisely shit fuck all about all this, and if I had a corporeal form, I’d show you. I would just fucking fling my own shit at you like some kind of fucking ape because atavistic apeshit regression is the only way I have of adequately expressing the volume and quality of shit I give.

> Hateful Sullen Teen: Tell a story. Please.

>implying that’s anywhere near good enough to get me to care.

Obviously I want to tell you a story.

Drifting out here in the infinite void is boring as fuck, but your attempt was so shitty you get negative points for effort.

So you know what? You’ll get your fucking story inflicted on you, because you fucking deserve to suffer through this bullshit.

> Hateful Sullen Teen: Invoke Muse

Muse? Muse does jack shit and explains less. Fuck that.

Sing, Prince, of the absolutely and utterly fuckèd (pronounced fuck-AYDE, like the shittiest brand of bright green sports drink that has ever had the misfortune of existing) mess of ridiculous bullshit known as Sburb/

that just fucking wrecked all of us. fucking hussie man I swear to god or shai’hulud or the fucking horrorterrors, in all their incomprehensible tentacle-writhing gesticulations what the hell/

Begin, O Prince, at an arbitrarily selected point nowhere near the actual beginning and with no real significance whatsoever, because who even gives a shit?/

and this entire thing is literally a fucking circlejerk anyway. Sburb is how the universe jacks off. Jesus fuck that was appropriate, you’ll say in however many fucking chapters. Christ. smh tbh fampai./

here we fucking go.


	2. I DID NOT SIGN UP TO SEE THE DOINGS OF BITCHES AND WHORES.

> ???: Enter thread.

[http://boards.4chan.org/vg/thread/41361269/sbg-SBURB-general

SBURB General: DD a best edition

>What does Problem Sleuth/Midnight Crew have to do with SBURB?

The MSPA author, Andrew Hussie, is apparently on the dev team. Or something. Nobody really knows for sure.

>Since all we do is discuss Midnight Crew/Problem Sleuth why not just have a thread in /co/?

mods kicked us out for being cancerous, smartass.

>Will Houseswitched ever come out?

nope.]

 

{an image of DOZE on a SLOWPOKE}

[last for doze]

 

[OP, you forgot this: http://pastebin.com/F8JDdvhG]

 

{an image of CLUBS DEUCE wearing an UNUSUAL TOWERING PILLAR of HATS with the SUNBEAM effect}

[First for CD > DD]

 

{an image of JOEY CLAIRE, holding a FLASHLIGHT. You know the one. You’ve seen it before. It’s one of the few pieces of HOUSESWITCHED art that has been released. This thread is stale, but you stay in because why not? It’s not like you’re doing anything else today anyway.}

[So it looks like hussie got hired by skaianet. does that mean houseswapped is officially dead?]

 

{a two-panel comic, drawn in MICROSOFT PAINT, of the three METASLEUTHS, PSG, TUMBLR, and MSPA. In the first panel, MSPA lies DEAD on the ground, orbited by FLIES. TUMBLR weeps over his body, and PSG is facing away. The second panel is a closeup of PSG’s formerly hidden face, upon which a SINGLE GLEAMING TEAR can be seen. It’s an old bit of OC, from the pause before [s] Sepulchri2de. These threads are getting kind of stale.}

[houseswapped died in the womb, anon. there was never any hope. >tfw hussie will never finish Whistles]

 

Now’s as good a time as any. You figure you might as well post it, if only because you can’t play alone. Who are we kidding. You want to make friends and you don’t have any other pretext for interacting with people.

???: Post SBURB link. ==>

{You append an image of a SPIROGRAPH, the SBURB LOGO, and receive many many (You)s for your trouble. Each response ignites a warm little fluttery feeling in your heart; you smile a little, giddy on the fumes of the closest thing you will probably ever get to recognition.}

[SBURB.exe Here’s the link for the SBURB beta. Session.4cHnHST~ATH Each installation comes with one of these; clicking it designates you as the Server of the Client the session link responds to and adds you to your client’s chumroll. First to click mine—my Server¬—controls stuff for me, presumably.]

 

{(you)} [WHAT]

{(you)} [holy shit. how did you get this, anon?]

{(you)}, accompanied by an image of a WEASEL FLIPPING THE FUCK OUT}

{(you)} [it's just another freedom]

{(you). This post is a reply to the post above} [nope looks legit]

 

The thread practically explodes. You lean back in your chair and check your OUIJA MODUS. Nothing. It’s not like you expected anything, anyway. If spirits do exist, they’ve never contacted you, so your modus has been nothing but trouble ever since you got it. It’s AESTHETIC as hell though. If only your STRIFE DECK fit as well. You make it work, but it’s kind of limited.

??? ==> Enter Name.

Your name is Bina Thelenne.  You have long black hair and perfectly normal non-limpid eyes. You look like no celebrities, and nobody tells you so. You would not call yourself a PRACTITIONER of WICCA because you know the proper term is WITCH, and also because WICCA is technically a loose collection of traditions and is frankly LAX. While you can appreciate a well-illustrated grimoire as much as any of them, you detest the WICCAN TUMBLR collective and its individualistic approach to WITCHCRAFT. Your AESTHETIC requires a meticulous and structured mind, which you just so happen to like to think you have, and many many meticulously organized SHELVES and CABINETS and OTHER ASSORTED STORAGE UNITS full of meticulously catalogued materials, which you most assuredly do. Your PARENT’S BASEMENT, where you LIVE, is absolutely immaculate. People who call themselves “wix” and can’t even sanctify an ATHAME are fucking casuals, and you detest them.

In a completely unrelated totally-a-coincidence, you lack a COVEN. You just haven’t found one that’s right for you, and you’re sure you’ll find one eventually. You only have like one friend actually. You hope SBURB will maybe help you meet some new people.

Oh, you like other things, too. You like puzzles, be they riddles or actual puzzle-piece puzzles—this is how you found PROBLEM SLEUTH. You are an alto—because of course you are, and an alto 1 at that. You like HARRY POTTER; though it lacks the nuanced view of MAGIC that you yourself possess, it still possesses merit as a fun series of children’s books. The MIDNIGHT CREW adventure was alright—but what really intrigued you was the HOMESTACK INTERMISSION; its plethora of characters, some of whom apparently use magic, and mention of SBURB (so many years in advance. Truly Hussie plays a long game) are fascinating. The INTERMISSION is, you think, the best part of the MIDNIGHT CREW adventure. Also it had a mysterious grey alien boy with a scarf and wand and you are are somewhat ashamed to admit you eat that stuff right the fuck up. Your pesterchum username is certainBoline and you type

in a semi-formal manner; enjoying the use of semi-colons—you also like hyphens.

A thin breeze scrapes the upper edges of your concrete shoebox. It is neither snowing nor raining simultaneously; patches of cloud wreathe a sky the color of bleached bone. 

Something is missing from your life, as if it had never been there, and its conspicuous absence serves only to remind you that you do not even know what it is. You have tried, for years, to fill the yawning void. You have not succeeded. It haunts you, stalks you; your nights are rendered sleepless and your days hollow. It's like somebody plucked it out of your nascent psyche and didn't bother closing the lid. There's a shitty riddler, the shittiest imaginable. He is already here, and you are-

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays

Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days;

Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

-Turati, noted Italian Grandmaster.

Turati said that, you are sure, and you are doubly sure he was right. A shitty riddler he may be, but the chessmaster's hands move deftly and without error, and the pieces click their way through their preordained places. Every eventuality has been accounted for; every play and counterplay understood and anticipated and always, always, there is the fingernail-clicking of the pieces in their Danse Macabre. 

Poor ill Luzhin.

You dream sometimes of chess-men locked in endless struggle; symbolic representations, no doubt, of some abyssal subconscious turmoil you would like to acknowledge and get over as quickly as possible. It's an unusually heavy-handed metaphor, even for you.

You feel like today is going to be a long day.

 

>Bina: Get pestered 

-aphoproseEntelekhine is pestering certainBoline-

Oh, it’s this girl. She’s your friend, you guess. You admire her dedication to her field; you’re still better at what you do than she is at what she does—even if she clearly thinks otherwise. Self-indulgent referential chumhandles are an accepted part of Pesterchum Culture, but you had to look hers up on wikipedia. It’s kind of gratutious is all you’re saying; but that’s just the kind of person she is.

Kind of gratuitous.

 

AE: guess what

CB: You should guess what.

AE: wrong answer.

AE: I found a screenshot of the sburb cover, and it looks like alchemy’s involved

AE: (your inferior mystical tradition can eat a metaphorical dick)

AE: (or a physical dick I guess.)

CB: Your guess: a “physical dick.”

CB: Alas! Tis a failure. How unexpected! There is a surfeit of dicks to be had; no matter how badly you may be in want of one;

CB: For I have gotten ahold of the SBURB beta itself.

AE: what, like the dikcs?

AE: did you check? open the virginal package for a look at the vagina and/or package?

AE: (physical dicks I mean. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; freud sang – not!)

AE: (because then he would have had to take the actual metaphorical dick out of his mouth)

AE: so where did you get it and can you send me a copy?

 

>Bina: Roll eyes and have uncomfortable realization.

You know she is trying to make you uncomfortable! Knowing Hussie, there will probably be dicks in SBURB, but you honestly don't like to consider such things. You are too old to not have had sex, a fact which you are increasingly more aware of with every passing day.  Yeah, she probably made some kind of deeper reference in there too. You pass on trying to find it because it’s probably shoehorned in anyway and you don’t like feeling stupid, and it would probably also just involve dicks which you currently do not know quite how you feel about.

She usually isn't this crass. You briefly wonder if you've offended her by not sending her the beta, then banish the thought. 

Oh shit. You should have saved your link to send her. You suppose you might as well refer her to the download. Even if you aren’t quite sure just how much of her antagonism is playful—and you aren’t quite comfortable with your own attempts at repartee—it would be nice to play with someone you know.

 

CB: I posted a public download in PSG.

CB: It was just kind of there. Regardless, it appears authentic.

AE: well i’ma go do that then

AE: just dick around

AE: hopefully we end up in the same session chain.

CB: Bye.

AE: byee~

 

> Hateful Sullen Teen: Narrate.

SBURB just loves its fucking coincidences, sweet idiot child. There is a veritable fucking cointsunami probably composed of FUCKADE coming your wway, and the only way to stay alive is to join it.

God, watching these poor fucks is depressing as shit.

 

> Bina: Get re-pestered.

 

Anyway, it looks like whoever picked your server link up—one tacitLarsonist—is pestering you. At least their username pun isn’t as intolerable as AE’s.

 

-tacitLarsonist is now pestering cernunnianBoline-

 

TL: thanks for the link

CB: Sure. You’ll be my server player; I’m afraid I don’t know what precisely that entails.

TL: so i installed the beta and sburb looks kinda like sims

TL: i’ve got a bunch of buttons for placing stuff

TL: and a very well-rendered room with some silly-witch-hat-wearing girl in it. She’s on her computer.

TL: my avatar maybe, or yours. i guess i build stuff for her to do and you control her and the next person in the chain builds stuff for me?

CB: Silly witch hat?

TL: yeah. they probably didn’t even wear those.

TL: google says

CB: What does the room look like? What do you think of it?

TL: occultish. everything is organized or framed or shelved. there’s a deer skull on a wall and a giant pentagram-diagram-thing on the floor

TL: anyways google says the pointy hats come from the 1700s

TL: well she took it off so it doesn’t really matter

CB: I know the hats are a recent invention—it’s just that they’re a convenient visual shorthand!

CB: My computer isn’t providing any kind of avatar control system.

TL: i’m going to start placing stuff then.

 

CB: Holy Fuck

TL: you know statistically speaking of course we live in a computerized universe

TL: considering the subset of all possible universes that contain sufficient resources for simulation and the number of hypothetical simulations

TL: this is a revolutionary development! can you believe that everything we believed was wrong? who made this game, and why are they sending it out? the possibilities are practically endless! 

CB: Can you build me a new closet?  

TL: nope i'm out of grist

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each character's name is tied to the second letter in their pesterchum handle. Bina Thelenne = cernunnianBoline, Elle ??? = apophroseEntelekihine, Leto ??? tacitLarsonist.


	3. MORE FUCKING KIDS. WHO CARES.

???: Check thread.

{An image of a METEOR, bearing down toward some anon’s HOUSE. In the distance, more METEORS streak across the sky like raindrops down a window. They smear bloody red trails over clouds; the effect looks roughly like a small child had been provided with a tub of viscera and a blank canvas.}

[goddamn hussie really pulled through. the coloring on those things is beautiful]

 

[>hussie did it.

too bad we’ll be dead]

 

{this post is a reply to the post above.}

[^anon get in my session. Session.fUUcKyOU.~ATH 

See that? fuck you.]

 

{an image of PSG, Metasleuth mascot screaming in rage and angrily waving a dildo}

[FUCK IT EVERYONE JUST POST SESSION DATA AND GET AS MANY ANONS IN AS YOU CAN. imminentIrrelevance in SESSION.298r4eE.~ATH HERE I LOVE YOU ALL AND DON’T WANT YOU TO DIE]

 

???: Introduce self.

But of course!

  
Your name is COEN GOODMAN, Pesterchum handle tenebrousCerse, and you are going to win SBURB. You admittedly have no idea as to how SBURB is won or even played, but you know your first step. You will CONSOLIDATE your relationships with your fellow players, many of whom will undoubtedly serve as valuable assets in the game to come.

You enjoy the writings of many distinguished writers, along with those of several who are not so distinguished, though you would never admit your taste for certain more sordid strata of literature. You like defined social roles and despise degeneracy, as of course is only natural. While you accept the existence of a vast sociocultural unconcious conspiracy roughly analogous to the patriarchy, your boogeyman actually does exist. You'd like to think social justice types are simply misguided. You are kind of patronizing.

You are a winner, and people who are not winners are losers. The world is black and white, and you know whose side you are on. 

  
A notification arises on your phone, just as you shall arise to the forefront of your group of players and achieve victory. The trumpets heralding your magnificent conquest produce a sound you can ALREADY HEAR. You will begin to ingratiate yourself with the rest of your session, and you will triumph. You have already acted as the server of some guy who really didn’t care. That was frustrating, but he entered the medium so now you’re done with him.  
Anyway you have a Chum to pester.

  
—generallyDescript is pestering you!—  
TC: Ha Ha. What a jape! You’re not pestering me. In fact I am very interested in what you have to say.

GD: Hlo Feriendo What Can i Do You For 2day

TC: I beg your pardon?

GD: Alas Alack. Nonesence. dullard

GD: Speak Now Sayings Concerning the Bright Ball

TC: I prototyped a picture of a sad frog I keep taped to the wall. He reminds me of the family life I never had, and serves as a substitute parental figure to provide love and support.

TC: It’s unassigned as of yet. I thought it best to keep my options open as long as I could should I someday find myself in a situation in which I would need to be armed.

GD: Hoooooooooooooooo 

TC: Do you feel the need to assert authority over me by voicing an idea I have doubtless already had myself?

TC: Are you that stupid?

GD: calumny

—generallyDescript is no longer pestering you!—

  
That didn’t go the way you meant it to, but you can always recruit her later. Her advice was sound; you think she’ll make a splendid underling.

You allocate your modus to PADDLEKIND and ready a CANOE PADDLE you had captchalogued for some reason in your TICTACTOE MODUS, step out the door, and behold the LAND of SUN and SAND. If it wasn’t for your everpresent pair of sunglasses you might burn your eyes out.

> Coen: Survey land.

  
There is a lot of sun and a lot of sand. It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. You can’t see very much. You step forward, and the sand underneath you shivers. The Frogsprite behind you produces a kind of hiccup-sob, which you do not heed. Its moans are weak, and you have no time for weakness. You are here to win.

There's a static discharge. The world awaits you.

You step forward. The sand quivers and flexes beneath your feet. You take another step, and-

what the FUCK is THAT  
it ATE your HOUSE

 

>Diamonds Droog: Abscond.

Seems the device worked, then. The thumper goes back in your Brawlsoleum, and your Deck of Cards goes back in your inventory slot. Quick and dirty, just the way you like it.

This job, of course, was dirtier than most; your hands, as always, are clean

Soon enough that kid will follow his house into the maw of the Ancient One of the Desert. You don't do a whole lot of field work, but you're here on a mission from the Queen herself. Messing with Queens is the kind of thing you're generally happy to leave to Jack, but you had a couple of agents already on LOSAS and they checked the area. Who knows what goes on in that pretty white head of hers?

White Queen wanted that kid's house destroyed. It's probably just another time loop; seems harmless enough.

You figured doing her a favor was worth a little treason, and your own Queen agreed. Seems there was something she wanted done too while you were at it. You don’t know exactly who she wanted you to kill, but you have your suspicions.

You are not a betting man, but you like your odds. It's vile, and not in the knives in dark alley's way. You are simply disgusted by your target.

You knew there was a reason the Queen shut herself away. Jack’s going to love this. 

Did you say you didn't mess with Queens? Nah. You meant exactly what you said: messing with Queens is something you leave to Jack.

Your cuestick prepares the break. One quick jab to the back of the head-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> generallyDescript is based off shitposting personalities of tumblr like elmer and sandsvendor100; Coen's inspiration should be obvious.


	4. NOT ME. I AM THE ONE WHO DOES NOT CARE.

Your name is Leto Corrin, and you were right all along. Consequently you are kind of flipping the fuck out and will probably introduce yourself properly later once you have settled down.

You suppose the post-Singularity mechanisms by which an AI could seize control of reality are a lot more direct than you expected, and you update your beliefs accordingly. You've always known you were living in a computer. Gravity and the speed of light are constants, Planck lengths set the resolution of the universe, and your life has never quite felt real, although empirically speaking you suppose that says more about your perceptions than it does about reality. 

This is kind of a crazy thing though. People all over the world presumably have the game now. It won't be long before somebody tries to, you don't know, transfigure a bunch of unpaired up quarks or a nuclear bomb and blow up a country or something.

 

TL: do you fully understand the ramifications of the universe being a computer simulation!  
CB: What ramifications? Furthermore, I fail to understand how your materialization of a whatever that thing is demonstrates your proposition in any way.  
TL: it's called a cruxtruder.  
TL: if the game can alter reality, it's clearly plugged into the fundamental code of the universe in some way.  
TL: can you touch it? a lack of haptic feedback would rule out this just being beamed straight into our brains  
TL: or at least rule out it being beamed in badly  
CB: Who says the universe even runs on code? I find it just as likely we exist as shadows in the dreams of gods or inside a giant salamander or something equally arbitrary/stupid/not a computer.  
TL: ockham's razor says so. the game is a game, games run on code, so it runs on code. it seems to interface directly with the universe, so its code connects to the universe, and the system is most efficent if they just use code. it's simple if you think about it like that!

 

> Leto: Introduce self. 

Your name is Leto Corrin. You are still kind of flipping the fuck out, but only kind of. You enjoy games both video and board and have a particular fondness for Magic the Gathering, though you generally play on a program called ONCEMAGE since you lack the irl friends you would need for a friendly round of cubing. You are also a devout Singularitarian, because religion and mysticism are silly. You can code, but not very well. You have a penchant for sour things, and you enjoy the aesthetic of ancient Greece. You take exactly the right amount of pride in your situational heuristics. 

You were too caught up in your dreams of the future to see that SBURB had already arrived. You mentally chalk this up to the planning fallacy and resolve to do better. 

Besides, you're one step closer to saving the world, if you don't fuck this up and doom humanity. 

You make the conscious decision to step away from your computer and walk downstairs for a glass of water. 

You keep the door by the sink open and drink in the sound of the rain. 

Raindrops fall like seeds. Their rivulets course down your window, drawn earthwards by inexorable gravity; they will seep into the dirt and then evaporate and then do it all over again until the end of the world, which incidentally will happen considerably sooner than expected. All around you spin cycles innumerable; wheels and clocks and planets, driven by forces you despair of ever comprehending. You feel like your heart is the only still thing in existence. 

 Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

-Apocryphal; attributed to Rabbi Isaac Luria 

You're not a kabbalist, but you agree with the sentiment. Something cosmic is broken, and the entire system has overcorrected; whirling out of control. You can hear it in the sound of the rain. 

There is only one riddle, and there is insufficient data for a meaningful answer.  

Yeah it's kind of depressing. You go back upstairs to your room.  

 

TL: why would we be in a salamander anyways?  
CB: I admit the prior hypothesis was frankly pretty silly.  
CB: Regardless; what exactly changes?   
TL: everything! we're being simulated! =0  
CB: No, I mean what changes for us? We were about to play a game, and we are going to play the game.  
TL: you got over that whole existential crisis thing pretty quick!  
TL: now we get to play the game of admin access to everything  
TL: well maybe more like mod access.  
TL: so do you want me to put the rest down?  
CB: There's more?  
TL: there's a pre-punched captchalogue card here  
TL: and a list of makeable stuff, which is pretty empty right now. which means we can make stuff somehow, probably with those machines.  
TL: totem lathe and alchemiter go right outside on your driveway, if that's okay with you?  
CB: Sure.  
TL: looks like making that subbasement requires more build grist than we have.  
TL: but we'll get more eventually I bet.  
CB: The cruxtruder has a timer. Perhaps it creates more cylinders with each cycle?  


> Bina: Investigate. 

Your modus yields the pre-punched card surprisingly easily. You insert it into the TOTEM LATHE, which clearly carves the deep green CRUXITE DOWEL you were given. The carved dowel then goes on the ALCHEMITER's pedestal, and the alchemiter creates a chessboard. You are kind of out of breath from all that scampering, but the system itself seems simple enough: Captcha cards are punched by a mechanism as yet unknown and used to make pretty much anything at the expense of grist, presumably the ingame currency. 

Five minutes remain on the timer. 

The seizureball's function eludes you. You tap it with the closest object you have at hand, an artist's mannequin on which you have painstakingly diagrammed chi paths and chakras, both major and minor, and it becomes PROTOTYPED. You and TL are both grateful you didn't just grab it. 

The chessboard beckons. 

You move a pawn. TL moves another.

CB: So the game is telling me to play chess?  
TL: well why else would the board be there  
CB: Is killing jokes supposed to be funny?  
CB: Honest question here; I've got a friend I just can't read.  
TL: I guess it depends  
TL: on the friend and the joke  
TL: I'm terrible at this game  
TL: just so you know. I like flashy clever plays  
CB: Do you.   
CB: Fortunately for you I am also terrible at this game.  
CB: It makes sense, gamewise and all. I even have a couple openings memorized.  
CB: But I've never won a game in my life.  
TL: that's not a good sign  
TL: for you I mean  


TL: =)

 

> Dawn: Dream

You spend your days shitposting and your nights among the gleaming golden spires of Prospit. Literally among the spires, you mean. You like watching the chess men down below and the clouds above. You've never gone up or down. You just observe.

Tonight is different. A frazzled-looking prospitian clings to your favorite spire, the one with the seat-shaped ledges. She hands you a card and rappels down, looking grateful to not be quite so high up. 

It's an actual card; an ACE of DIAMONDS, to be exact. At least it's not the ACE of SPADES. There are three lines of white lettering on the back, so neat they might have been printed there: White moves first, Princess. The Cathedral of Synthetic Allocation. Bring the puppet.

You have the puppet with you, of course. You've tried to get rid of the damn thing before, but it just keeps following you.

The Queen is there, of course. She tells you she'll need to tell her agents to retroactively send you the card somehow, and that the card gives her an idea. Prospitians do a lot of time loop stuff, you gather.

You place the puppet against a cathedral spire. The White Queen tells you to stand back, and raises her arm. Her Ring of Orbs Eightfold flashes- 

a cyan afterimage burns itself into your eyes-

and the puppet is gone, along with a significant portion of the roof.

Several prospitian laborers bow to you and scurry to repair the tower. It would be absolutely terrible, they tell you, if one of these fell. 

That is, you think, the end of it.

You are very wrong.

 

 


	5. I WANT TO PLAY A GAME.

Dialoglog:

Status?

skaia has collapsed into a black hole. the meteors are gone. prospit and derse have both been consumed. there are two planets left before he reaches us.

any last words?

We can’t give up. We need to keep hoping.

He’s invincible. Can’t be vinced, so we run.

where? I’ll be fine in the furthest ring, but you guys are dead men walking.

men and women I mean.

floating running whatever.

You’ll die as well; you must know that.

that affected seer shtick is getting old. we can still win though! i have half the code i need to save us all and dawn managed to make the tadpole

We’ll merely require another active volcano and another battlefield.

Alchemization of such, provided sufficient grist, would be trivial.

thanks bina but i’m serious. we just need time and the other half of the code i apparently had buried in my subconscious which we can probably get out with time.

if we can just let the AI out of the box and it doesn’t immediately forsake human morality, we win!

Jesus fuck. Can I please just have a status update?

Echidna hass Done a Death And Fell Into The Black Hole. We Are Also Done

I Made Eight Cleaned and Fresh Plates. There is Not Spared. Goodbye Us

yep

who the fuck

oh. it’s you.

it's been a looong time. how have you been?

seriously what the fuck do any of you even remember this guy

Hey. Nice of you to show up, even if it is a bit late.

Oh! I remember you. You’re my server player! :o

Nobdy Cares. The Bigger Problems Loom and Where Are You? You Are Nought But A Speck Upon the Tapirs Eye nand Hoof =/

i haven’t seen you. ever.

Fuck you. You hid all game—from us, from your duties. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

nah

went god tier.

see?

That Was Not Eneceisary. Stop You Are Doing Me a Regurgitation U Heayinous Fool.

i saw. i saw everything.

Might I collect some? It is a valuble potion component, and I don’t produce nearly enough.

Ew No I Have Nought Need of Such Deplorable Seeing. Desist.

-generallyDescript has left the Dialoglog-

hehe

that was frankly unnecessary, both of you.

just lie down and die. itll be less painful

Fuck that.

iris. we need to talk.

-tacitLarsonist has left the Dialoglog- -arrietalInvert has left the Dialoglog-

So you sat the entire game out and now you’ve come to beg us for help?

Grovel harder, peon.

Seriously—Why the Gehenna/Sheol/Tartarus should we offer you assistance?

ha. ha. i wouldn’t help you to save my own sorry skin.

i’m here to tell you to shut up and die.

rude.

Please fuck off.

We could have won with another person probably maybe. You contributed nothing, insipid edgelord..

He is already here.

He has always been already here.

He will always be already here.

His being already here always was.

His being already here always will be. His having already been here always will have been.

His having already been here already is. His being already here was always, is always, will always be. H i s a l r e a d y h a v i n g b e e n a l r e a d y i s b e i n g , a n d a l w a y s h i s b e i n g i s .

chill please.

H e i s a l w a y s h e r e . A l w a y s h e h a s b e e n h e r e . H e i s a l w a y s a l r e a d y h a v i n g b e e n h e r e. H e i s a l r e a d y h e r e.

Shut up!


	6. HERE ARE THE RULES.

> Hateful Sullen Teen: Continue exposition.

Fuck no.

This is a fucking travesty. _I_ barely have any idea who any these people are. There’s NEET witch, some textbook basilisk bait, a blond asshole who fetishizes self-help books, lele le shitposterior SupreMeme, generic hope player number nobody gives a fuck, miss that is what the refrance, and obviously connected to Lord English red text.

We are introducing each and every one of these insipid little fucks, and we’re going lighter on the timeskips, because nobody deserves timeskips.

We’ll start with lavender one-liner, because you didn’t even notice I left her out of that list, you inconsiderate prick.

 

Some time earlier, either before or after.

A young girl is lying face down on her bed. A long blonde braid on the back of her head prevents her from lying comfortably face up on her bed, which she would much prefer. For a moment, she considers using her scissorkind to cut it off, but her consideration is merely idle.

Today, as has been mentioned, is the end of the world.

What will the name of this young girl be?

==>

Your name is Iris Reboux.

You spend a lot of your time on homework. It’s just what you do in your free time now, when you’re not doing other things, like skiing, or singing, or downloading sketchy files off 4chan. You play some video games sometimes. You have a pet snake named Peabody, who you should probably feed in the next three or so hours. Clocks are alright, but you wouldn’t fill a mansion with them or anything. You like moths; moths are cute. You type

like this, with no caps!

Yeah. You don’t have any super unique hobbies like some people you know. It’s kind of a sore spot, to be honest. You would like to be interesting, but you never seem to have enough time.

You have homework to get back to. The game can wait till later.

Why? You are absolutely fucking done with all your server player’s bullshit. He dropped a bunch of pointless machines in your room and then died, apparently, because that is the only reason you can think of for him to abandon you. Wait! No! He is actually just a lazy sack of shit and you have no obligations toward him. You will admit that you have a tendency to be late, but this is ridiculous and you are done.

You reluctantly clamber around the cylinder-capped device and retrieve your computer.  

> Iris: get pestered.

-aphoproseEntelekhine is now pestering arrietalInvert-

AE: hello. this is the 4chan sburb help hotline

AE: here to help you with sburb as should have been obvious from the title

AI: oh! hello. i’d forgotten i posted that. it’s totally fine tho.

AI: i have some other stuff that needs doing. you really don’t have to go to all this trouble.

> Iris: Briefly regret decision.

Jesus christ you’d really like to write your paper. Posting your chumhandle on PSG has gotten you two lonely anons, three lonely femanons, and zero productive anything. You think it might have been pretty fucking stupid of you, actually

AE: but I do.

AE: well, I don’t have to. I just feel like it.

Wow. You hadn’t thought AE’s remarks could get any more patronizing, but there they are. You wonder if they’re masturbating to their own magnaminity. You think you might as well take that smug fuck down a peg, and it would be nice to get all this ridiculous stuff organized.

AI: oh. i have a bunch of machinery in here. can you tell me what does what?

AE: where’s your server?

He fucked off to distant parts unknown; terra incognito, where he is currently cartographing never-before explored reaches of his own ass.

AI: not sure. he just left :(

AI: well he dripped a bathtub on my giant pillar thing and made a lavender flashing ball and then he left.

AE: there’s a captcha card somewhere that needs to be put in one of the machines.

AI: okay.

AI: my modus might make that kind of hard though.

This is a vast understatement. Your TACHYON MODUS must be glitched. Seemingly random items keep appearing in it, and anything you insert disappears. Perhaps it’s linked to somebody elses? Luckily for you, it seems that the prepunched card is already in there.

-

In the distance: bright green lines trace circular paths on the sky.

-

You take a second to check what other nonsense has been deposited in your SYLLADEX. It’s not all bad. Sometimes you get good stuff: a while ago you got a bunch of free captcha cards.

There’s a tamborine in there now, along with a book containing some kind of code. You flip through, but it’s practically illegible.

AE: and then I think there’s some kind of trial that differs by player

AE: presumably once the dowel goes into the thing? these posts are all pretty panicky

AI: what thing? what dowel?

AI: i’m afraid i don’t know what you’re talking about.

In the distance: Skaia’s spirograph pulses and reconfigures itself. It spins high overhead, like the unblinking eye of a cyclopean god.

Evidently you have been found either worthy or unworthy. It spits forth a meteor.

AE: you probably ought to get on that. the meteors are coming~

AI: what?

AE: yeah if you don’t “get in” in time you get killed. by meteors

AE: *one meteor, singular.

AI:

AE: look outside.

In the distance, but slightly less far in the distance: a meteor streaks across the sky. On the meteor, though you cannot see her, is a GIRL with a GRIM EXPRESSION. She’s got a look on her face like she wants to fucking KILL SOMEBODY but is too upstanding of a citizen to do anything more than consider it.

That there is a meteor, headed right for you. Yep.

Shit shit shit fuck damn fuck aaaaaaaaaa.

> Iris: Investigate machinery.

You are too busy flipping the fuck out!

> Be the other girl.

Okay.

> Elle: No, be the other girl.

You are now the Other Girl. You are standing onboard a meteor.

> OG: Provide exposition?

nah she has important shit to do. You can watch though. She shoves a pill in her mouth and swallows.

She didn’t even drink any water. That is pretty badass.

The Other Girl decaptchalogues something that looks like a mad scientist got drunk and had sex with a trampoline, after of course creating the nessecary appendages, and then took the result and stuck a bunch of rocket engines on it and left it to fend for itself on the inner-city streets, where it had to sell some of its parts to stay alive but eventually found a home with a bunch of scrappy yet kind-hearted orphans or something like that before growing up but has never lost touch with its roots.

She jumps on it and it flings her through Iris’s window. This sequence is three panels and is highly comedic, but since I can’t draw you’ll have to settle for trusting me when I say it’s hilarious.

> Iris: what the fuck

what the fuck

some blonde chick has just been flung through your window!

She landed on your bed and is now apparently asleep.

okay then. You could make a big deal out of it but frankly you are still kind of hung up on the meteor that is going to kill you in-

-you check the Cruxtruder timer-

4:13. You continue to flip the fuck out.

> Iris: Take a closer look at the girl.

Hey! She looks exactly like you! What are the chances?

Well she did fly out of the sky so reality is clearly being kind of weird. You feel a little faint and decide to sit down.

> [s] Iris?: Wake.

You open your eyes. The girl in front of you is covering her mouth with both hands. Her legs are noticeably shaky as she sits in her (your?) chair, and she seems speechless. Were you ever this easily flustered? Did your hair really look like that? What exactly will this do to the timeline? Is asking yourself rhetorical questions about your own previous self at all productive, given her (your?) presence right in front of you?

You guess, yes, you don’t know, and a definite no.

Anyway you grab your snake and throw him in the kernelsprite, carve the dowel, alchemize the resulting entry arch, and shove your past self through the finish line tape.

> Iris: Get pestered by AE

AE: Did the meteor get you?

AE: i suppose i’ll know one way or the other soon enough.

AI: oh no. i’m still here

AI: she looks very stressed! i think i am having a bad day.

AE: need any more help?

AI: oh no it looks like i know what to do

AI: i’m doing it all. it’s very confusing though. i don’t like explaining?

AI: i’m doing something i think?

AE: is it confusing.

AE: i can’t imagine why.

-arrietalInvert's computer has been impaled!-

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a few days off for homework/timeline plotting.


	7. YOU TELL ME. OF THE ALPHA MALES

> Be OG Iris

She’s still a bit woozy from the sleeping pill to be honest. Try some other time, maybe?

 

> Be OG Iris, at some other time

You know that’s not what I meant!

Alright, smartass.

You are now OG Iris, and you are doomed.

Of course, your session was always doomed, for a reason that will become apparent eventually. What you mean by doomed is that you have heard the honk, blah blah infinite jest reference here. You are fucked.

Of course, the sounds themselves are only loosely describable as honks, in much the same way as a song can never be painted. They’re more like manifestations of an otherworldly force. Perhaps giant flashing letters might adequately depict their volume, both in loudness and size. You flick your Timewaitsfornomanbourine and skip forward.

You understand time intimately. Some say it’s a line, or a loop, or a ball of stuff. They’re wrong. Time is a spiral; a force. It’s inexorable progression, and the intricate dance of cause and effect that most people call time is just Skaia’s attempt to keep up. So, when you pull the strings of the fabric of everything, you are completely unsurprised to find that HE IS ALREADY HERE.

> Be a new kid.

Your name is Fred Device, and you are kind of quietly happy about the end of the world because it means a new beginning. Your client player has just entered, and now you have no responsibilites toward anyone. You have nothing to strive for and no expectations weighing you down, and nobody to make remarks about stuff you don’t want them talking about.

You like poetry and warm things in general, and also Midnight Crew’s Noir aesthetic. You also enjoy fantasy literature and tea. Your interests are kind of bland to be honest, unlike those of some other people you know, and you are totally fine with not sticking out for any reason whatsoever.

The first thing you do with your newfound freedom is adjust the socket on your left leg. The second thing you do is lie on your bed. You just sit there.

It feels really good, actually, so you keep doing it.

Eventually you decide to explore. You can hear, in the distance, the soft burble of a trickling stream and the gleaming sound of bells. There’s a storybook forest awaiting you, and you know just the thing to go with it.

You pluck what looks to be a copy of Les Miserables from your bookshelf and remove the dust jacket to reveal a SANDERSON FANTASY NOVEL you haven’t had time to read. Seriously that man’s pace is fucking insane. You like fantasy novels, ideally with a dash of romance Sanderson is apparently incapable of doing well. You love the man but his dialogue is so wooden sometimes you just have to put the book down, so you grab a similarly-discreet copy of The Amber Spyglass and walk outside.

That was two hours ago. You found a friendly looking blind snake and asked it about the bells and then everything went to hell. You receive, in short order, three requests for patronage, a proposal of marriage, several innocuously worded speeches accompanied by wiggling gestures the snakes themselves presumably cannot see, and a whole lot of blabbering involving wingdwibblies.

You don’t even fucking know what a wingdwibbly is!

You will summarize your predicament some other time but basically you have fallen into a labyrinthine political web of alliances and factions concerning your own arrival.

It’s almost dark by the time you return to your house. There’s a blonde girl there, bleeding out. A series of trees behind her look to have fallen for no good reason; the last one caught her. She says she's met you before. She says she’s made her peace with death.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fred's supposed to represent a certain internet archetype too~


	8. Chapter 8

> Bina: Slaughter underlings.

You really wish you had a better strifekind. You chose DECKKIND so you could always have a TAROT DECK on hand and it kills enemies just fine. It’s just that constantly playing 78 CARD PICKUP is getting kind of TIRESOME.

You do have a KNIFEKIND for your ATHAME, but the ATHAME is used only for metaphysical cutting. Shame.

A SADFROG DEERSKULL IMP limply engages you in STRIFE!

> Bina: Aggress.

Your FOUR of SWORDS flies through the air and strikes the underling. Its bulbous eyes water, and it looks at you like it wants to die.

You incant a lengthy curse under your breath; the underling awaits obligingly until a piece of your ceiling falls on its head, after which it explodes into GRIST. You dutifully collect the game abstractions.

That should be the last of them.

> Bina: Pester client

-cernunninanBoline is pestering certainFatigue-

CB: I’ve built your house up to just about the first gate.

CB: How are you doing? I do hope you haven’t injured yourself.

CF: Thanks, but I’m fine.

CF: You know,

> Bina: Respond.

You can’t! A large angry popup has appeared on your screen!

/hs/ - READ THIS FUCKING STICKY.

listen up you fucks. mod here. no more details on who I am because fuck you. global rules apply.

there are two rules:

  1. keep your fucking time bullshit in the time bullshit containment thread. I don’t know which one of you assholes is the time player but protip: nobody else wants to anything to do with your mindfucking metafuckery.
  2. no fucking romance. that shit kills sessions.
  3. fuck you I can have as many rules as I want.
  4. go fucking make out with self-consistency if you love it so much
  5. and then stick a glass rod up your urethra and stomp on it you insufferable prick



There are four THREADS DISPLAYED:

Moons (meetups), Help. My house was eaten by a giant worm, clarification on rules and Obligatory time bullshit containment thread.

 

You click on the third, headed by a picture of a Nervous Broad, head tilted slightly to one side.

{aforementioned picture of NB with head cocked}

[clarification on rules

Is the “time bullshit” you mention really containable? Who are you, and why the insistence on anonymity when only eight people are still alive? How am I supposed to stomp on a glass rod currently in my own urethra?]

(THIS USER HAS BEEN BANNED)

[I’m asexual. Can I have non-fucking romance?]

(THIS USER HAS BEEN BANNED)

(THREAD LOCKED)

Elle is such a smartass sometimes. Most of the time, really.

Actually she's never not. You can't actually recall any sincere conversations you've had with her, and you aren't surprised.

 

> Bina: Distract yourself by clicking the second thread.

{an image of a WHITE GIRL standing in a FIELD of GRAIN. Wisps of her BLONDE HAIR have escaped her BRAID. She LOOKS into the DISTANCE forlornly. She’s a fucking farmer; why does she have perfect makeup on?}

[Help. My house was eaten by a giant worm.

pic unrelated]

There are no other responses. Why did you bother clicking when you could see that from the catalog, which you use like any civilized person, selecting threads on their own merit rather than by which have gleaned the most inflammatory responses.

Anyway you click the Moons (meetups) thread, which is headed by a transparent image of a small yellow circle and a large yellow circle, and immediately regret your decision. 

[Hallo Freind The Moons Which Orbit Now Are the Meetignplace Of Us. We Shall Convene Upon The Chain IN Two Hours. but u say i a poor dumb awake person have not the means of reaching the moons But You Are Wrong. dullard

The Prospit Awaits Always For You. Four Half Of You. The Other Half Of You Are Silly Geese and Unwanted

I Jest]

 

[Mod’s being useless, and so apparently are you. dream moons? prospit? chain? a little exposition would be greatly appreciated]

(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

[really though. does anyone have any idea what’s going on?]

[op does. or they're crazy. or they're experiencing a different subjective reality than we are, if any of you actually exist.]

> Bina: Post.

[Enough solipsism, Leto. Wherever the chain is, they presumably think at least some of us will be able to get there within a couple hours.]

[well duh. but bar more gates I don’t see any way that’s happening.]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> progress update:
> 
> revised some personality stuff, dawn's dialog patterns in particular


	9. Chapter 9

> Elle: Introduce self

Sure. Your name is Elle Poleyn.

You are of an appropriate age. You are very THIN and ANGULAR, and of AVERAGE HEIGHT. You wear a pair of GLASSES even though nothing is wrong with your EYES. This is probably a METAPHOR which you are choosing to disregard. You disregard a lot of things, including explaining what you disregard. You tend to tuck your long black HAIR behind your ears, wear long swishy skirts in generally muted colors, and adjust your superfluous glasses. Your characteristic facial expression is a kind of terse-lipped smirk. You would, if pressed, admit you have a resting bitch face.

You have an immense fondness for ALCHEMY. The construction of subtle elixirs and vague decoctions is pretty much the best thing anybody ever heard of ever and so you draw alchemical symbols on all your stuff. Can you blame you? No, you just love the aesthetic so much.

When you heard of a game that involved ULTIMATE ALCHEMY your fate was sealed, though you will not understand this for a long time.

You occasionally indulge in UNIRONIC GENDER DISCUSSION, and you also like ORIGAMI. You like long swishy skirts u just think they look cool is all. That’s probably a metaphor for something, right there. You and glasses, both on yourself and other people, though you don’t actually need to wear them. You have a pair of BLUE STOCKINGS which you wear occasionally, but you despair of anybody ever getting the reference.

What, your personality? You would rather expound on your interests.

Your taste in media is somewhat questionable. You like JOJO a lot but would never admit it to anyone. You also really love REVOLUTIONARY GIRL UTENA. You like thick books, though that doesn’t necessarily speak to their quality. In fact, your most recently devoured book, INFINITE JEST, is infinite and therefore technically of indeterminable thickness (and certainly of indeterminable quality). It has given you a taste for the META which will probably not at all be significant.

> Elle: Recall situation.

You pestered your chum Bina and then you were helping some girl try to enter when her computer got impaled. She’s probably dead. woooo.

Meteors fall like raindrops.

-tacitLarsonist is now pestering apophrosEntelekhine-

TL: hey

TL: hows the weather

AE: cloudy with circumstantial meteors

AE: pleasantries over and done with

TL: yep. can you get me in? I just need you to drop some stuff

TL: i have a friend i can ask to get you in

TL: since you probably don’t want to be killed by meteors

TL: how do you think meteors kill you?

AE: swiftly

TL: you know what I mean

AE: ikykikykiketc

AE: impact? heat pre-impact? movement of air pre-impact or something

AE: anyway you probably don’t want to find out personally

AE: (so yeah I’ll get on that)

TL: see you in the medium

You drop the stuff off. Leto is kind of autistic, but he’s not incompetent. He’ll enter without fucking anything up.

You, on the other hand, though you don’t know it, are going to fuck up immensely.

Perhaps if Iris hadn’t come back to force-prototype her snake, Iris would know what was happening and prevent you from prototyping what you prototyped.

Of course, had Iris not come back to force-prototype her snake, as you would later come to understand, your session would have been barren.

Fucking paradox space.

-

> Fred: Save that girl!

You apologize briefly and run into the house, where you keep plenty of pain meds. You don’t like watching people in pain.

You come out with a splint, a drawer’s worth of drugs, and your Homurasprite. She’s not your waifu or anything you’re just an amateur artist and the picture touched the sprite you swear.

Homurasprite touches the girl.

You suppose that takes care of her injuries, at least?


End file.
